Novels and learning English
Do you think reading novels from past era is useful in learning English?
or Should students concentrate on comprehensible and easy to understand content like newspaper articles, podcasts and probablt sitcoms/movies? I found reading a novel from past era quite taxing and the vocabulary I encounter I wonder whether people use it in daily life?
Any comments would be highlt appreciated. My main focus is to speak English fluently with a decent accent. Thanks.
<<My main focus is to speak English fluently with a decent accent>>
Then you should focus on spoken English. Sitcoms, Youtube videos, public radio. The vocabulary you need is probably found in newspapers, I think. Good luck.
<<The vocabulary you need is probably found in newspapers, I think>>
No. Newspapers rarely talk about certain topics which are essential, including slang and everyday objects. There is no easy way to learn such words.
<<No. Newspapers rarely talk about certain topics which are essential, including slang and everyday objects. There is no easy way to learn such words.>>
Yeah, I assumed he could get that vocabulary from somewhere else, or that he already knew it. If not, in written English, I think you could find current informal English in internet forums.
People also Internet slang in forums, though.
There are slang books you can purchase if you want to learn them separately. I am pretty good at slang, though! Using them won't sound good if basics are not right into place. I need to listen a lot, I guess, podcasts and online radio. I have a problem with accent so I need to nail it down.
Novels can be great input!
You should focus on recently-written novels rather than centuries-old ones. You're more interested in learning the English of your epoch rather than a bygone version of it, right? In this respect, Stephen King is better than Mark Twain, for instance.
Also, you should focus on novels that are "light" and lacking artistic merit. Award-winning novels are usually the kind of books that feature highly-elaborated language instead of basic, middle-of-the-ground one. The latter is obviously the most precious for the ESL learner. In this respect, Barbara Cartland is better than Stephen King, for example.
My advice could sound odd, but it's such only if you're intent on putting together a greatest-novels-of-all-time kind of list. It's sound advice from the mere perspective of learning a foreign language.
With happy December wishes,
Achab
try Shakespeare for novels
The more you speak the more you get better at getting fluency. I think we need to find ways to transfer passive knowledge into active one. I have known so many people who explain everything with simple sentences without using big words. I agree with Achab's advice. I need to read modern novels so that I can learn present day to day vocabulary rather than archaic. Going through Harry Pottor series might be a good idea.
I'm so tired of Harry Potter. Is that really a good idea for American English? Then there's all the "magick" stuff. It's not much use in my daily life.
I wonder if Patricia Cornwall would be a better choice for some people.
-I'm so tired of Harry Potter. Is that really a good idea for American English?-
Yup, since it's 100 % American. H.Potter is translated from UK English into American for kids to understand ;)
TommyHawk,
Another suggestion is to read screenplays, plays, and radio play transcripts. They're almost all dialogue, so you avoid the dense language of older novels. And they're a manageable length--much more material than an article, but shorter than novels. (Rule of thumb: one page of a screenplay manuscript = one minute of screen time.)
Also for screenplays: if you get a shooting script (the version used for the actual production), or a script published after the movie is made, you can follow the movie with a complete "transcript"--visual, audio, and written input.
>>-I'm so tired of Harry Potter. Is that really a good idea for American English?-
Yup, since it's 100 % American. H.Potter is translated from UK English into American for kids to understand ;)<<
I find the "translating" of Harry Potter from an English form of Standard English to an English form of Standard English rather disturbing myself, considering just how close together the two are when you think a bit about it. Hell, at least here in the US, kids read *a lot* of British literature completely untranslated in school, and they have no real problems with it at all, so I wonder just why they decided they had to "translate" Harry Potter...